But unabashed Trump love can be risky in a state where he is deeply unpopular.

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Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, right, and Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel, third from left, listen to President Donald Trump during a White House meeting on so-called “sanctuary cities” in this May 2018 file photo (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images).

It wasn’t what Greg Raths expected from a house with an American flag, a gun rack and a pickup.

But when Raths knocked on doors last year as part of his Mission Viejo City Council re-election campaign, and he told the homeowner he supported President Donald Trump, he was told: “Get the hell off my property.”

Raths won anyway, getting almost 14,000 more votes than he received in 2014.

As an unabashed Trump supporter, and an elected official in Southern California, Raths is a rarity. Though there are other Southern California politicians who support Trump – and nearly one in three Southern California voters agree with them – being pro-Trump is not a political strength in this region. And relatively few politicians, even Republicans, offer Trump support as a front-and-center part of their political brand.

How each politician handles their Trump love – and how that support affects their career – varies.

“I just like (Trump’s) style,” said Raths, a retired Marine Corps fighter pilot who is running for Congress in 2020 as a Republican against Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine. “Yeah, he’s crass and he’s divisive. But he gets things done.”

Raths, who is Mission Viejo’s mayor, went to Trump campaign rallies in Anaheim and Costa Mesa during the 2016 presidential campaign. During a trip to Las Vegas, the president signed Raths’ hat.

Other Southern California lawmakers have had closer contact with Trump.

Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, sat next to him during a May 2018 White House roundtable on California’s “sanctuary state” law limiting law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

“My constituents are suffering from the failed policies of this state and all too often I hear about my constituents and businesses leaving this state,” Melendez wrote in an email, when asked about her Trump support.

“The president’s policies, including his border policies, are designed to make us safer. I don’t believe I have a constituent who feels safer with this state’s criminal-friendly policies. If support of our president can give my constituents even a glimmer of hope, then yes, I’m all in.”

Mayors, sheriffs, and other local elected leaders from California took part in the White House roundtable. Among those was Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel, who with husband Shawn, a Republican National Committee member, greeted Trump at Los Angeles International Airport during a March 2018 fundraising visit. Michelle Steel was the only elected official awaiting Trump as he disembarked from Air Force One.

Marine veterans Zelda Weiss and Mission Viejo Mayor Greg Raths talk during a Veterans Day ceremony at Villa Valencia Senior Living in Laguna Hills in November 2018 (File photo by Mindy Schauer, The Orange County Register/SCNG).

Publicly attacking Trump is a political layup for Democrats in California, where 62 percent of voters chose Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Polls of California taken during Trump’s presidency, including a Quinnipiac University Poll from early April, consistently show strong disapproval ratings. Gov. Gavin Newsom cruised to victory last November against Trump-endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate John Cox, while another Democrat, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, routinely challenges White House policies in court.

What’s more, the anti-Trump feeling in California has grown during Trump’s presidency. Overall, Trump’s approval/disapproval rating in California has slipped from minus-four percent when he was inaugurated in early 2017, to minus-27 percent as of last month, according to polling data from Morning Consult.

But what’s true of the state isn’t true in every region of the state, or every community. And the president does enjoy strong support in some deep-red districts represented by Republicans. For example, in Melendez’s western Riverside County district, the GOP holds an 11 percentage point edge in voter registration and, in the 2016 election, Trump got 56 percent of the seat’s vote.

Melendez said she’s “received nothing but positive comments and support from my constituents” regarding her interactions with the president.

D.C. to Calexico

A Navy veteran elected to the Assembly in 2012 after one term on the Lake Elsinore City Council, Melendez appeared with Trump on a San Diego stage in 2016.

She went with her family to Washington, D.C. for Trump’s inauguration; she attended the Freedom Inaugural Ball. She also met with him this month when Trump came to Southern California and, among other things, inspected a rebuilt border fence in Calexico.

“I want to thank you for your leadership on border security because the impacts are definitely felt in California,” Melendez told Trump, according to a White House transcript. She and the president discussed the impact of California’s protections for undocumented immigrants on state residents.

Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore (File photo).

Still, experts say the Trump connection carries political benefits and risks for Melendez.

By closely aligning with the president, “Melendez keeps a Republican challenger from emerging in 2020,” said Marcia Godwin, a professor of public administration at the University of La Verne. “Melendez’s high profile may also give her more influence within the Republican caucus in the Assembly, and more free media attention.”

But on the downside, “Melendez may have difficulty having substantive influence in the (California) Assembly,” where the GOP is a superminority, Godwin said.

“Republicans seen as more pragmatic may be able to influence legislation on some issues as a result.”

Melendez views her Trump support in positive terms.

“There is no downside to supporting our president,” she wrote. “Nor any justification to not support him.”

“Same sheet of music”

Overall, Raths said he got a mixed reception from voters regarding Trump when he knocked on doors in 2018.

“I can sit down and have a beer with these guys. But if they’re anti-Trump, I’m not going to change their minds,” he said. “A lot of people love the guy, but they’re afraid to say it because he is a little brash.”

For other local GOP politicians, public connections to Trump can be tricky to manage.

Trump won Cook’s 8th Congressional District, which covers part of San Bernardino County, with 55 percent of the vote. Registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats by 4 percentage points in the district.

Cook, a former state lawmaker and retired Marine colonel decorated for combat in Vietnam, said he was happy to get the president’s endorsement, but it won’t make him a political lackey.

“If there was something the president did or said that I didn’t like, that doesn’t mean that because he endorsed me, I’m going to be a lock-step vote (for him).”

Cook, who said he doesn’t regularly talk with Trump– “I’m not on his speed dial” – said he appreciates what the president has done for the military, his support of Israel, and his decision to move the American embassy there to Jerusalem.

Jeff Horseman got into journalism because he liked to write and stunk at math. He grew up in Vermont and he honed his interviewing skills as a supermarket cashier by asking Bernie Sanders “Paper or plastic?” After graduating from Syracuse University in 1999, Jeff began his journalistic odyssey at The Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York, where he impressed then-U.S. Senate candidate Hillary Clinton so much she called him “John” at the end of an interview. From there, he went to Annapolis, Maryland, where he covered city, county and state government at The Capital newspaper before love and the quest for snowless winters took him in 2007 to Southern California, where he started out covering Temecula for The Press-Enterprise. Today, Jeff writes about Riverside County government and regional politics. Along the way, Jeff has covered wildfires, a tropical storm, 9/11 and the Dec. 2 terror attack in San Bernardino. If you have a question or story idea about politics or the inner workings of government, please let Jeff know. He’ll do his best to answer, even if it involves a little math.